Thank you.
It's good to see you at committee, Deputy Prime Minister.
As you know, I only have six minutes and I am hoping to get in more than one question, so if the answers are long, I may cut in a little bit.
Working middle-class Canadian families are certainly feeling the pinch at the grocery store, as are the financially vulnerable, like people living with disabilities and seniors on fixed incomes. It's not because Canadians are suddenly buying way more food than they did before. In other words, it's not too much money chasing too many goods in the grocery sector. There are other factors at play.
One of the roles the government can play is to support people financially in what continues to be a difficult time because of the pandemic. In fact, a lot of vulnerable people—whether they're low-income families on the CCB, recipients of the Canada worker benefit or GIS recipients—are seeing their benefits being clawed back. I know you talked a little bit about the GIS issue in your opening remarks.
Bill C-2 doesn't actually include any provisions that would prevent the clawback that we're seeing. It's one thing to have to address it retroactively for the CERB and for the CRB. The Canada worker lockdown benefit is a forward-looking benefit, but there's nothing in there that would prevent the kind of clawback that we're seeing.
Why did your government choose not to include anything that would prevent a similar clawback in this legislation?